Commitment and Love

The last relationship I found myself in involved both love and commitment on my side, while my partner held love but lacked commitment on his side.  Our relationship held many fun times and we would talk about our future together which strengthened my commitment as he was the one who would often bring up these talks.  I think in order for commitment to last, both partners need to be moving in the same direction in life and although we both held similar goals, we were on two completely different playing fields.  I wanted to start settling and he still wanted to party so that was the end of that…

Although not ideal for me personally, I do not think relationships that have commitment but not love are bad.  Oftentimes arranged marriages or pragma type love from online dating websites are beginnings to these types of relationships.  I think that once a couple can decide on a solid foundation, love and respect can grow from there.  The strong completely practical base lacks appeal to me however as I require passion and intimacy from a partner prior to building a practical life in the future together.

Online Deception and an Inquiry of What's Ethical?

I think that the question of whether it is ethical for people to represent themselves accurately online depends on the online community they are representing themselves in.  For example, I think that it is less ethical to misrepresent yourself incorrectly in online dating forums because relationships are based on trust and the fact that someone is lying on the initial advertising of themselves to possible partners is a red flag in honesty.  If someone in contrast, lied about themselves on Facebook, most of the people are not intensely viewing the profiles with vested interest so it would not be as bad of an ethical offense in my opinion.

As far as deception is concerned, I think that people are equally deceptive in online forums as in face to face contact.  For example, I think that both vicinities would include deception of misinterpretations of financial assets, personal short comings, relationship history, basic information, and initial intentions of the relationship.

The Development of Friendship

The idea that really grabbed my attention out of the reading this week was the section discussing the development of friendship.  According to the reading, there are 6 diagnoses of friendship: role limited interactions, friendly relations, moving toward friendships, nascent friendships, stabilized friendships, and waning friendships.  I was actually kind of sad to see that I really only have a few relationships I consider stabilized with the majority falling into the moving towards friendship category.  I have been thinking about this and I feel like it is not because I have not had opportunities to have more stabilized friendships but rather my limited time available to those stabilized friendships that I already have.  I have two best friends that I spend the majority of my time with and until school ends, I do not foresee many opportunities to get to know more people.  I really enjoy meeting new people and mingling in social situations so I look forward to graduating and being able to have enough time to go out and be social again.  Although it was a somber realization, it really makes me appreciate those stabilized friends I do have.  Personally, I would rather have 5 stabilized friends than 1,000 moving towards relationship friends.

My Best Friend Dynamics

My best friend Barbie and I have been through many ups and downs together. There were times where our friendship was so strained that it almost snapped twice…  We have been best friends for almost 10 years now and we have invested a lot of time crying, laughing, and loving one another completely unconditionally.  I once told her after she went through a bad breakup that although he was her heart and it was now broken, I would always be her lungs and I would help get her through that horrible time.  Going through so many happy, heartbroken, and challenging times has allowed us to grow together and trust one another.  We have also hurt one another- sometimes intentionally but mostly unintentionally.  These challenging times allowed us to grow together because giving one another grace allowed us to begin to trust one another again and realize that we should not let little things ruin the beautiful relationship we have.  I think that the dynamics of our friendship are absolutely consistent with those identified by researchers in this chapter.  She tells me when I am messing up and her calling me out really grants huge amounts of respect from me.  I can honestly say that she is the most honest, caring, and supportive person in my life and I will forever love her unconditionally.  Forget best friends forever, she is my sister for life!

The Friendship Page and the Friendship Chapter

Many of the issues provided in the advice forum reflect not only pressures on friendships but also cover the fundamentals of relationships.  Some of the challenges on the prompt website include acceptance of sexual orientation, dealing with friendship dilemmas and arguments, dealing with feelings you may have developed for a friend you have, and making and keeping friends.  The book has very helpful guidance and information regarding understanding feelings of acceptance, trust, and support as well as understanding the different stages of friendships and how to identify what stages a friend may currently stand with you in a relationship.  Reading the section dealing with internal and external pressures could also provide guidance to those dealing with understanding what one could do to be a better friend (in the internal section) with my favorites being communicating honestly and engaging in dual perspective, as well as identifying what external factors to be aware of that could impact your friendships including competing demands, personal changes, and geographic distance.

Relational Dialetics

For my weekly freebie, I have decided to write on relational dialectics.  Relational dialectics are continuous tensions or opposing forces that are normal in relationships (Wood, 2013).  I found this topic interesting because I think everyone at some point have felt these tensions and either felt like the relationship would end because of it or ended the relationship because of the constant “bickering.”

            The three relational dialectics that have been identified by researchers are autonomy/connection, novelty/predictability, and openness/closedness.  Autonomy/connection is the feeling of needing to be independent and have an individual identity vs. the desire to spend time sharing oneself with the other partner.  This is the number one continuous struggle for most couples.  Novelty/predictability is the feeling of needing to introduce new stimuli into a relationship vs. the need to have a structured existence that provides security.  It is trying to keep things exciting and fun in a relationship while maintaining the balance of a routine as well.  Openness/closedness is the conflicting desire of openly communicating and needing privacy.  Complete openness would be intolerable and needing privacy doesn’t mean the relationship is failing.  It just means that, as with all things, balance is best.

Dealing with Disagreement

I once found myself in metacommunication with a boyfriend in regards to a conversation in which he told a friend on the phone in front of me that he was hanging out with his mom the rest of the day when he actually was planning on spending the day with me.  When I asked him about the discrepancy, he told me that he had felt it necessary to tell him that so that his friend didn’t feel like he didn’t want to spend time with him, but rather that he lead his friend to believe that he had previous family obligations.  I told him that no matter what, either his friend or I was going to be hurt by this kind of dishonesty in the end.  I explained that I felt that the fact that he couldn’t be honest with his friends about hanging out with me downplayed our relationship.  I now see that I felt discredited in his eyes in comparison to his friends; either that I was not good enough for them or that maybe he didn’t like me enough to “own” me in front of them.

                I think that the initial way my boyfriend at the time responded was not bad.  He used I-Language and he eventually did admit that he was sheltering his friend from the loss of time he chose to spend with me.  The fact that he responded with I-Language allowed me to lower my defenses and take the risk of explaining how I felt, which led us to understand one another’s point of views better.  This experience also revealed to him my need for absolute honesty, even from “white” lies.  Looking back from my perspective, I see that the strategy he utilized was what injured me in his conversation with his friend.